


Character Limit

by fadeverb



Series: Kai and Mannie [21]
Category: In Nomine
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-20
Updated: 2013-10-20
Packaged: 2017-12-29 22:21:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1010799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadeverb/pseuds/fadeverb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mannie goes to a party. Kai infiltrates an underground Vapulan lab. They text!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Character Limit

Over the last several years I have learned to deflect certain types of requests from particular Sisters adeptly and politely. When one suggests a tea party, I have a meeting scheduled an hour after it begins to give me a graceful exit. When another offers to introduce me to attractive Virtues, I explain that two romantic relationships are quite enough to keep me busy already. When any of them suggest a trip to the corporeal, I have my Cherub write them a note excusing me from any such thing.

Unfortunately, I seem to have been out-maneuvered this time. When Cory asked me to make a place in my schedule for a get-together for Brights, I dutifully blocked out a few hours. Aside from an unfortunate tendency to bring along rowdy friends, she demonstrates a reasonable ability to arrange meetings that are neither tedious nor actively unpleasant. And I am told--occasionally by people whose opinions I respect--that I ought to, ah, play nicely with the rest of my Choir, insofar as one exists.

I did not realize until far too late that she meant something other than the usual type of meeting, where a handful of us appear in the same cafe and discuss matters specific to our Choir. Through some unholy combination of requests, favor-trading, and outright bribery, she has assembled nearly every Bright living who is willing to step into the presence of other Sisters. In one place, at one time, for a once-in-a-century Bright Lilim party filled with people I have never met. We can still all fit into a single large room designed for parties--in fact, we would have easily fit into a quarter of the space, with enough room to lurk in separate corners based on Word politics--and with an eye towards not making the large space overly depressing, Cory has invited special guests. Waiters. Bartenders. Live music. And on every invitation, a Plus One.

"Well, I think it's fun," Nosha says, as it surveys the room from the wall I have found to huddle against between a buffet table and a space cleared for dart boards. There are darts hitting the wall two meters from me, but this being Heaven, I am not particularly worried about any of them going wild and striking me in the face. (Which is something of a pity, as that would give me an excellent excuse to leave.) "And you might enjoy it better if you walked out into the crowd and spoke to some of your Choirmates who you haven't met before. Maybe you'll meet one you get along with."

"What do you think the chances of that are?"

"Much better," Nosha says firmly, "if you actually speak to anyone, than if you stand here throughout the party."

"The problem with angelic," I tell the Elohite, as I fish out my phone and check for any sort of urgent messages from Gariel--who is, of late, less my supervisor than the angel who handles my schedule and decides what projects from other departments are likely to be worth my time--"is that I cannot say 'I must be going now, there's an urgent meeting I forgot about that desperately needs my presence' and expect anyone to believe me."

"A terrible failing," Nosha says. "We'll have to see if we can get that changed." The language of Heaven being what it is, there is no missing the sarcasm in its cheery voice. "Look at that! A Sister of yours, carrying a drink with a little umbrella in it. I think I'll go ask her where she got it."

"You do that," I say, and stare grimly at my inbox. There is nothing in there that I could use to justify an escape. The top message arrived from Zif half an hour before the party started; within, she strongly recommends that I attend, and attempt to "form additional interpersonal relationships, especially with Choirmates from other Words of a suitable nature." That is not the sort of advice from my Cherub which I can interpret as an excuse to leave. Rather the opposite.

As Nosha begins chatting up one of my peculiar siblings, I pull up the new app that Niele convinced me to install, and tap out the syntax for sending a message to Kai. It seems like yet another example of people using computers to develop arbitrarily restricted single-use programs, but I can't deny that it's less likely to interfere with my Ofanite's duties than a voice call, and more likely to get a fast response than email.

#

_@dancekaidance I am trapped in a Bright party. Nosha has abandoned me to socialize. The exits are blocked by Malakim of War. Send help._

Now the thing is probably I'm not supposed to be checking for messages on my phone anyway when I'm right in the middle of sneaking through the vents of a massive underground Vapulan lair. After all, it's a lair! Not even a lab, a _lair_. When the mission briefing starts using words like that, it's a sign that fun times are ahead, and a higher than usual chance of losing a vessel. Or so the briefing claimed--about the vessel loss chances, not the fun times, because Lightning doesn't believe in giving fun ratings to their mission briefings, no matter how much data I provide for working out stats for that too--but in my experience vessel loss is always sort of unexpected when it hits you. So my point is, there's nothing really _wrong_ with checking my phone while mid-sneak, especially since I'm not currently in combat.

Since the vent I'm in right now is going straight down, I do have to wedge myself between the walls with both feet jammed against opposite sides of the vent and a hand braced out and shoulders wedged back--pretty standard chimneying position, really--and then work out my phone from a pocket with my remaining hand. There are some days I think we ought to ask someone why humans couldn't have ended up with prehensile tails and feet, the way monkeys do. It'd make the vessels so much more convenient! But I guess we'd find something to do with all that extra gripping power and end up wishing for five arms anyway.

This vessel's pretty good for tight spaces like this. They took away the last one (thank God, because it's ungrateful to ask to _not_ have a vessel, but I didn't like that one at all) and gave it to some Seraph, and now I'm in a proper vessel that feels right. More compact! Lightweight and speedy and suitable for stuffing into vents! I know some Ofanim like vessels that are all long-limbed and spidery, but me, I want something small. Less weight to move means I can put more of my power into sending myself further and faster or, I don't know, holding myself up with friction alone while trying to compose a message in return.

Which is a little awkward one-handed, since I need to type everything out with my thumb while gripping the phone, but that is what God created autocorrect for.

#

_@sparkybright But that's fun! Earth or Heaven? In the corporeal, you could carve out a new door! Or try making new fiends. Say hi to Nosha f_

I puzzle over "fiends" briefly before realizing the autocorrect has gone wrong for Kai yet again. This is one more example of the dangers of trusting error-catching to computers rather than to living beings, though I suppose in defense of the machine, my Ofanite is prone to talking about fiends too. The broken sentence is either a sign of character limits or having been suddenly interrupted by...the sorts of things that tend to interrupt Kai on the corporeal plane. Combat, car accidents, coffee, and other things that start with C.

Nosha returns to my side with two drinks, and holds one out to me. "Are you having fun yet?"

"No," I say, but I accept the drink, which has no doubt been optimally selected for my consumption. It is something alcoholic which I cannot immediately identify, emerald green, and far too sweet. I am not certain if I consider the color or the sweetness to be in worse taste, given the nature of this party. "Kai says hello. Who were you talking with?"

"Someone from Trade. They appear to be the largest contingent here, but I have hopes of tracking down the rumored Judgment Bright who might be somewhere in the room. I'm told that she may be avoiding mobbing by wearing bright colors and pretending to good cheer. We'll just have to see."

I make a noncommittal sort of noise, and contemplate the far wall. There is a space available that is not blocked by musicians, dart boards, or buffet tables, where I could indeed add a door. However, doing so in Heaven would be...impolite.

#

_@dancekaidance Alas, the party is in Heaven. No architectural modifications allowed. Do you need any help? I could come find you._

The fact of the matter is that ever since I tripped that one alarm, an ally has been high on my list of Things I Could Use Right Now, along with, I don't know, maybe some sort of umbrella? I shove my phone back in a jacket pocket, and duck behind the sparking control console. "We could probably talk this through," I call out. "It doesn't have to end in violence!"

I mean, it probably will. Usually does. But it doesn't have to!

Another handful of washers clatters against the console, and maybe half a dozen make it over the top to fall around me. It doesn't hurt, but it is a little annoying. "You'll never take me alive," shouts the demon. Probably demon. On the one hand, the mostly mechanical gorilla-shaped body suggests some sort of weird vessel rather than a human. On the other hand, I haven't been resonated with anything, it can't throw accurately or forcefully, and it doesn't seem very bright. Artificial intelligence? Brain in a jar? Gremlin? Almost definitely not a Hellsworn with a lot of body modifications, but it's kinda hard to tell with Vapulans.

"That's an option too," I call back, "but unless you're standing between me and that door in a really determined way, we could call a truce and I could just keep walking."

Another handful of washers cascades over the control panel. There are a few nuts and bolts in this set too. "Liar!"

"No, really, I could just walk--"

"I saw you descend from the heavens! You will never take my brain!"

Djinn? Brain in a jar? Maybe I should've brought along some sort of expert. I pull out my phone and check in with Mannie.

#

_@sparkybright I'm fine but what kind of Vapulan is attacked to brains? And maybe a robot gorilla? Please answer fast!_

"Nosha," I say, and then realize it has disappeared into the crowd again while I was checking my phone. Which means I cannot ask what it thinks about the advisability of attempting to track down Kai's current location and...well, no, I don't suppose I could justify a rescue attempt based on "I'm fine" and a reference to attacking brains. Attached brains?

I am not certain at all as to whether robot gorillas are another artifact of the autocorrect, or if the Ofanite has encountered one of those ridiculous cybernetic projects that always seemed to spawn their own massive inefficient departments, committees, and labyrinths of machinery that never produced anything the rest of us could use. You would have thought that grafted machinery onto living beings was a simple enough process, but all of the biologically-focused demons would develop facial tics if someone from the engineering side said so, and really, those projects tended to attract the worst combinations of ambition and impracticality.

In retrospect, I begin to wonder if someone in upper management with a decent amount of forethought did that on purpose. Pack away a few dozen dangerously unreliable Servitors in a vast underground lab working on cybernetics for fifty years, and either they'll come up with something useful, or they'll do each other in. Either way, it's a win, and doesn't cause the sharp drop in general employee morale that direct purges do.

Clearly, what I ought to do is go back to my office and check my notes about the relevant projects for any references to animal/cybernetic combinations and then use that to work up a useful plan of response for Kai. Which I can email, with flowcharts attached, and no doubt Kai will read that...several hours after dealing with the problem.

Any advice I give will have to fit into the character limit allowed by this absurd application, or not be applied in time at all.

A reliever stops in front of me with a tray of absurdly ornate tiny pastries. "Good day, Gifter!" it says, waving the tray at me. "Canape? Or is there anything else you need that I could help you with? I have a list of useful introductory statements to make to your Choirmates, and pointers to especially friendly ones!"

"Do you have any pointers to especially unfriendly ones?" I ask absently, as it is never appropriate to be rude to relievers, and they do like to feel useful. Working out useful, rapid, succinct advice for taking down a project I haven't thought about in decades is something of a challenge.

"Not yet," the reliever says, "but I'll ask Cory!"

"Tell her that I resent the entire premise of this party," I say, "but insofar as it's necessary to arrange any such event, which I still doubt, she has done a good job with it."

"I've been getting that a lot," the reliever says, and stuffs one of the pastries on its tray in its mouth as it wings away.

#

_@dancekaidance The control source is usually located in the head. Remove that. Be careful. What do I do at a party of Brights?_

I look down at the robotic head in my hands. "I feel sort of bad about this," I tell it, "but the fact of the matter is, I really do need to get to the central room and get my mission done."

"Bad touch! Bad touch!"

I put the head down in the center of the floor. "Sorry."

"Why?"

"Well, it's not like you could really do any damage to me, and I always feel a bit weird about beating up someone who's not a serious opponent, even if it makes sense on a tactical level--"

"No," the robot head says, and sighs. "I meant that as an existential question. Why me? Why, God, why? What did I ever do to deserve this fate?"

"Not really sure," I say. Probably I ought to be following the convenient map I got from the wall down towards the central control chamber, but at this point I'm feeling sorry for the head. "Maybe you annoyed a supervisor?"

"I never even had a supervisor," the head says, and sighs. "There I am, pondering how best to serve God with my wit and cunning and insight into the nature of reality, and they stuff me into a gorilla."

"A robot gorilla," I point out. "Doesn't that help any?"

"Yes," says the head, "it does! But not enough. So I'm back to the existential quandaries."

I pace around the room, and take out my phone to consider a good reply for Mannie. Creationer parties are easy to have fun with. Just talk to people! But Mannie doesn't like talking to people. Sometimes I think that Mannie would prefer to communicate with everyone he doesn't already like entirely by reliever-delivered notes, but if he did that, how would he ever meet new people to get to like them? And he ought to learn how to get along with his own Choir, so what I really ought to do is figure out a way to give him something to talk about with his Choirmates.

Probably not robot gorilla heads, because I don't think they'd have very much to say about those.

"Don't you care about my existential angst?" the robot head demands.

"Not especially," I admit, "unless you're a demon who's thinking about how terrible it is to work for Vapulans, and how you'd really like to take up the cause of Heaven and work for people who give reasonable deadlines and good backup and really cool toys that don't explode when they're not supposed to."

The head looks unconvinced. Hard to say how, since it's just a voice box emitting from an unmoving metal sculpture representing a gorilla head, but there you have it.

"Also," I say, "sometimes there are parties, with music and appetizers and games and people to talk to."

"Could I talk to them about the meaningless nature of life?"

"I suppose you could. The Elohim like arguing about all sorts of weird things that I don't really follow."

The head makes a snorting sound. "Elohim. Ha. Very well. I'll give you a chance to convince me. Now pick me up and take me along."

I pick up the head, and look it in its robot eyes. "Are you just trying to convince me to take you out of here so that you can betray me at a dramatic moment, and look good in front of your coworkers? Because I've been through that one a few times before, and it usually ends with smashing and getting set on fire and some explosions and missing limbs and all sorts of things like that, and you might be better off hanging out in here as a head if so."

"It's a possibility," the head admits. "But I'm intrigued by this talk of argument parties with music and appetizers. If anyone asks, you're kidnapping me against my will."

This is probably not the best choice I've ever made, but when has that ever stopped me? I pull the roll of gray tape out of my backpack--Mannie and Nosha both insist I shouldn't travel into Vapulan labs without it, because you never know when you're going to need to patch a leak to keep the whole place from being irradiated--and get the head taped down on my backpack where it can look around, if backwards, and still keep my hands free while I walk. "What are you, anyway?"

"I'm not really sure," the head admits. "I think I picked up a seventh Force at some point while trapped in that stupid body, but seeing as I've been stuck here the whole time, I don't know what I turned into. Never really had anyone available to resonate to find out what I could do."

And I'm not about to suggest it start with me. "Then tag along and we'll figure it out," I say. Keeping the debriefing with all the yelling in it in mind--because when an Elohite in Heaven yells at me, that really means something--I push the exit door open carefully rather than kicking it open. "Do you feel like everyone is out to get you and like you always tell the truth?"

"I don't interact with anyone else enough to be able to tell," the head says gloomily. "Watch out, this corridor is full of poison dart traps."

"Thanks." I rock on my heels for a moment until I spot the activation panels, then start down the corridor with an eye towards putting my feet in teh right places. "Do you ever suffer from an unreasonably strong attachment to random objects or people that you can't bear to hurt yourself?"

"Does my own robot body count?"

"Let's put Djinn down as a maybe."

#

_@sparkybright Thanks, robot head is whiny but might redeem. You never know! Look for another Bright you have something in common with, like_

"I don't know how it does these things," I tell Nosha, who pats me on the shoulder with its hand not occupied with a slice of pie. No one else appears to be holding entire slices of pie, but my lab partner is special that way. "Do I even want to know what it means? Is there any use in trying to figure out what autocorrect might be doing here?"

"I believe you would be best off taking its advice," Nosha says. "Find someone you have something in common with, and talk with them. Would you like a slice of pie?"

I pinch the bridge of my nose, and try to think calming thoughts. Robot heads are not calming thoughts. Talking with other Bright Lilim is not a calming thought either. "I do not want a slice of pie. I would like to get through this party without any--"

"Got a list!" The reliever wings backward rapidly, eyes going big. "Sorry, am I interrupting? I could wait!"

It's the one I spoke with before, now without a tray, but carrying a torn sheet of paper scrawled with a suspiciously familiar set of handwriting. Someone has been getting instructions from Cory.

"It's fine," Nosha says, and takes the list from the reliever. "Thank you. Would you get Mannie a slice of pie, and something very alcoholic?"

"I've been getting a lot of those requests too," the reliever says, and darts away, a blur of golden glitter in its wake. One might suspect Ofanite tendencies in its future.

Nosha examines the list, and then surveys the room. "There," it says, pointing clear across the room. "Past the stage, take a left, then around that yak. You'll find someone else who was either strong-armed or tricked into coming to this party hiding from the Malakite-ogling events over there. If you hurry, you may catch her before she escapes the party, or the darts tournament begins."

"I don't even know why we're having a darts tournament, Nosha. Or what the musicians are playing. Or why there are so many Malakim here. What in the world is so interesting about Malakim, compared to any of the other Choirs?"

"There are entire papers written on that," Nosha says. It plants a hand dusted with powder sugar between my wings, and shoves me forward politely. "Go. Talk. I'll forward you some of the papers later. Let Kai know that you're not hiding under a table."

I grit my teeth, and stride forward through the party. Sisters with all manner of wings and auras wave enthusiastically at me as I pass, and I do try to at least nod back to those with whom I cannot escape eye contact. This too shall pass.

#

_@dancekaidance Please beware suspiciously cooperative robot heads. You never know. What sort of things in common?_

I wouldn't classify this head as suspiciously cooperative. Sort of annoying, yes. Whiny, definitely. Prone to warning me about upcoming hazards shortly _after_ the defenses have been activated, yeah, that too.

"I would be really annoyed," I tell the head, as I try to get the last of the blue foam wiped off my shirt, "if that had actually been dangerous in any way at all."

"It's not my fault that most of my long-term memory was stored in other parts of the robot body," the head mutters. "And that was supposed to dissolve flesh. Horrifically. Slowly. Are you feeling dissolved at all?"

I hold up one slightly blue-dyed hand, and wiggle my fingers experimentally. "Nope."

"Not even a little?"

"Not even slightly." I leave the foam-soaked towel in the corridor, which is all sorts of untidy and probably a bad habit, but just on the off chance that the stuff is dangerous in high concentrations, I'm not packing the towel back into my bag again. "You know, this is getting a little weird. A few malfunctioning traps are par for the course when it comes to Vapulan labs, but where is everyone?"

"That's what I've been asking for ages," the head says. "Thus the angst. Did I mention the angst? About my existence?"

"A few times." I try to think cheery thoughts as I walk down the corridor. It's very Star Trek, what with the corners being cut off so that instead of a standard rectangle it's a rectangle with angled corners, which I guess would make it an octagon if they were all the same size, and the doors open automatically based on my approach--which is the sort of thing that seemed a lot more futuristic before grocery stores started doing it too--but it's a real bore to have to walk along _carefully_ what with all the traps. I'd rather go running, but that's a fast route to vessel lost and awkward post-Trauma debriefing sessions. "Do you feel like you'd really enjoy making someone a friend briefly and then taking all their Essence?"

"Not unless I got a good conversation out of it," the head says.

"You know, I'm not sure you actually fledged. Are you sure you're a demon?"

"I _am_ ," the head insists. "Oh, and we seem to have passed the sensor for the automatic travel system."

"The what?"

I was sort of expecting a pit, but the ceiling opens above me and it turns out the Vapulans put the floor on some sort of jets. Clever! Fun! I hope there's not a roof overhead in the darkness that I can't see yet. I tap out a hasty response to Mannie and put my phone away to prepare for impact.

#

_@sparkybright It's pretty harmless, just annoying. Find someone who likes working constantly, or coffee! Those would be good commonalities t_

The aforementioned yak is, to my lack of surprise, a large Cherub whose wings blend in with his coat quite well. He regards me placidly for a long moment as I debate continuing on the route Nosha assigned, or walking past the musicians again. If I choose the latter, I intend to detour widely next time. There are people _dancing_ in front of the stage. Auras mingling. It is not exactly madness, but this is hardly the sort of party I prefer.

"You aren't about to insist on dancing, are you?" asks the Cherub.

I frown at it, and wonder where it could get such an idea. "God forbid."

"Then you may hide back there as well," says the Cherub, and turns his head aside to let me squeeze past between his horns and the wall.

Behind him, in excellent hiding-from-Cory-and-siblings position, another Bright has acquired a set of chairs. She has her feet propped on the spare, while she taps briskly at a tablet. "I don't need refreshments, thank you," she says.

"Then it's a good thing I haven't brought any. May I use that chair?"

She looks up from the tablet. "...ah. Yes. Go ahead. Did Cory strong-arm you into this as well?"

"Tricked me into," I say, dropping into the chair as she removes her feet. She dresses like a Mercurian, which is not uncommon among our Choir, and from all the golden aura around her I would guess she's one of the Trade Brights. "She so often acts in a forthright and blunt manner that she can lull us into the false impression that she doesn't know a thing about deceit."

"That's War for you," says the Bright dryly, and pauses in her work long enough to offer me a hand. "Gintare, of Trade. You would be with Lightning? Emmanuel?"

I shake the hand, as is only polite. "You have the advantage of me. That would be entirely correct."

"I try to keep track of the incoming Sisters," she says.

"So that you can better avoid them?"

That startles a laugh out of her. "I would like to think I'm not that anti-social. Though I don't see the point of all this. There's work to do down on Earth, and while all this seems pleasant enough, it doesn't get us any closer to winning the War."

"I quite agree," I say, "aside from the part involving the corporeal. There's plenty to do here without taking on those risks."

"Maybe there is, for Lightning. Trade's work requires more of a hands-on approach." She falls silent, as do I, at the sound of a very familiar voice on the other side of the Cherub.

"--having a good time," Cory is saying to someone, "whether they want to or not. They should socialize! Get to know each other!"

Gintare taps rapidly on her tablet, then holds it up in front of her. _If we make no sound, she may never discover us here._

I shake my head at her. No. It's already too late. The doom is upon us.

"Maybe you could take a lighter hand with the process," says another familiar voice. Oh, Nosha, you manipulative bastard. I could kiss it right now. "Have you tried the pie? Come on, let's go look for them over past that crowd of Malakim..."

"Thank God," Gintare mutters, as the voices fade. "Are you trying to get work done through this too?"

I glance down at my phone. "Not exactly."

#

_@dancekaidance Have found a kindred spirit to complain with. How is the head situation?_

"Huh," I say, not having come up with a better comment yet.

The head, currently tucked under my arm so that it can see what I see, sighs dramatically. "This is why they left me alone? This, the cause of my solitude? My endless questions? My--"

"Apparently!" I say, because I'm not sure if it'll ever shut up otherwise. Usually I'm pretty good at dealing with whiny things, because you just treat them like kids who need a nap and a snack and work from there, but I admit this head's been getting on my nerves. "Did you not know that the whole staff was going to put their own vessel's heads in jars and attach them to big robot bodies?"

"No, I knew that part," says the portable head. As opposed to the rather human-looking ones that I'm almost _sure_ are vessel-derived, given all the glowering they're doing at me, which are inside those jars attached to the various robot bodies. "What I did not realize is that they wouldn't test the control system properly before hooking themselves up."

I walk in wide, cautious circles around robot legs. Some of these things are bigger than semi-trucks, or would be if laid horizontal. "At least they seem to have gotten the breathing system to work! Look, that one blinked! Which...I guess also explains why no one came to check on this when a bunch of demons popped into Trauma at the same time, if they didn't. But you'd think they would have left at least one person attached to their full vessel and in charge of making sure they could all get detached and word sent back home if something went wrong."

There is a long and ominous silence from the head I'm carrying.

I stop, spin on one toe, and look down at it sternly. "Really? You didn't do anything?"

"Never liked them much anyway," the head mutters.

#

_@sparkybright Glad you're having fun! Heading back, need to call in a disassembly team, because of the number of heads. See you soon!_

Gintare reads the message over my shoulder. We have acquired a box to hold the plates with our canapes and drinks, and a solemn oath from a black-winged reliever to not let Cory know we're here. It is as comfortable a situation as we are likely to acquire in this party; the sounds coming from the other side of the yak are increasingly loud, enthusiastic, and terrifying.

"Disassembly team? Heads?"

"I don't know. I'm not certain I even want to know."

"That isn't a very Lightning approach to the matter," she says, and offers me a slantwise smile. "But it may be the wise approach. Caution being the better part of valor."

"Given which, I still can't understand why you would spend so much time on the corporeal."

She shrugs loosely, tilting the wine glass in her hand. "Needs must, Sister. And I do have a Guardian. I'm heading directly back downstairs as soon as they stop blocking the doors. I don't understand how you can stand to sit in Heaven forever, when there's so much work below that needs to be done."

"I do work for the corporeal," I say. "In an advisory capacity, and by proxy. Though sometimes I wish my proxies would be somewhat more cautious."

"Do you think--" She pauses as an Elohite's face appears over the Cherub's back. "Do you need something?"

"Cory's on her way," Nosha says, and tosses me a short-range laser cutter. "I can stall her for about two more minutes before she attempts to drag you out of that corner. Good luck." It disappears before we can answer.

"That," Gintare says, "is one peculiar Elohite. However, if it's handed us a means of escape--"

I turn around to consider the wall behind us. "If your Cherub can add another minute to that time, I may be able to create an escape route before Cory can pounce."

"I'm willing to lay my life down for the cause," says the Cherub. "I may return to you with braids and glitter, Gintare, but it's not too high a price to pay for your ability to work too hard and spend no time having fun."

"I am having fun," says my Sister. "I'm escaping. Well. Get on with the cutting, Emmanuel, if you'd please?"

"My pleasure."

#

_@dancekaidance I have escaped the party. All is well. What happened to the heads?_

I'm still not sure how to answer that one. The disassembly team is currently divided into three parts: the Malakite who's laughing hysterically, and who keeps pointing at the robots, then breaking into laughter again; the Elohite, who is having a serious conversation about existential angst and the nature of being with the gorilla robot head; and the Kyriotate, who's trying to work out how to make these giant robots move. It turns out there are some serious energy inefficiencies in the system.

_I'll tell you when we next meet,_ I send to Mannie, and then put away the phone. Some things just need to be explained in person. Still, it's been a good day. I got the job done, if not in quite the way any of us expected, and at least Mannie finally worked out how to have fun at Cory's party.

Knowing Cory, she'll probably enjoy the thrill of the hunt, too.


End file.
